Police and doctors convicted of Genoa G8 brutality avoid jail

Fifteen Italian police officers and doctors sentenced to jail for brutally mistreating detainees after the 2001 G8 riots in Genoa were today celebrating their freedom after it became clear none of them would actually serve prison terms.

Defendants in Italy do not go to jail for most offences until they have exhausted all the appeals to which they are entitled – normally, at least two. And in this case, it emerged, the convictions and sentences alike would be wiped out by a statute of limitations next year.

Judges in Genoa announced the convictions late yesterday after 11 hours of closed-doors deliberations. Thirty other defendants were cleared of charges ranging from assault to the denial of basic human rights.

The court heard detainees testify that they were insulted, kicked, beaten and sprayed with asphyxiating gas in their cells. Some were threatened with anal or vaginal rape. Others were forced to shout out chants in praise of Italy's late fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini.

The only real effect of the verdict will be to allow for the victims of the abuses to receive compensation.

Roberto Castelli, Silvio Berlusconi's justice minister at the time of the offences, welcomed the outcome of the three-year trial. He said it had "dismantled the theory" that the violence was organised by the then-new government as a way of putting a stop to rioting by anti-globalisation protesters at G8 meetings.

The leader of the right's parliamentary group, Fabrizio Cicchito, said: "There was no systematic repression or torture, but there were mistakes by certain members of the forces of law and order."

But Paolo Ferrero, a communist minister in the last, centre-left government, called the outcome "scandalous". He said it was part of an Italian tradition "of not wanting to shed light on events that really happened".

Between 100,000 and 200,000 demonstrators converged on Genoa seven years ago to take part in anti-globalisation protests. Most were peaceable, but some were not, and the situation deteriorated as the police employed tactics that many witnesses described as heavy-handed.

The violence peaked with the death of a 23-year-old Italian demonstrator, shot dead by a conscript carabiniere. More than 250 of those arrested were taken to a holding camp that had been created at Bolzaneto, six miles from Genoa, where the abuses took place.

The heaviest sentence handed down yesterday, five years, was given to the camp commander, Antonio Biagio Gugliotta. Twelve other police officers, eight men and four women, received jail terms of five to 28 months.

The chief of medical services at Bolzaneto, Giacomo Toccafondi, was given one year and two months in jail; he was accused of insulting detainees and failing to inform authorities after they were sprayed with asphyxiating gas in cells.

The detainees at Bolzaneto included about 40 who were arrested in a raid on a school being used as a dormitory. A judge ruled there was no evidence to show any of those demonstrators had been involved in the violence in Genoa.

One, a Briton, Richard Moth, later told the Guardian that, despite injuries sustained in the raid that had him "screaming with pain", he was made to stand for hours spread-eagled against a wall.

The Bolzaneto trial was one of three arising from the Genoa G8 summit. In December 2007, 24 demonstrators were found guilty of damage to property and looting. They were given sentences ranging from five months to 11 years. In the third, ongoing trial, 28 defendants, including some of Italy's most senior police officers, face charges related to the raid on the school, which left 62 injured, three in comas.